The River Valley Progressive Men’s Club will host its annual celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday Saturday at the Hughes Community Center in Russellville.

The event will begin at 11 a.m. and will continue until mid afternoon.

Men’s Club publicity chairman Willie Braxton, a 31-year employee of Entergy and former Arkansas Tech University football player, told The Courier that the organization has hosted the celebration for 25 years and is famous for its cooking.

“We are excited about King’s celebration and want the community to be excited as well,” said Braxton.

He said this is a significantly important event for the community with the focus on “avoiding complacency.”

“If we do not continue to remember the struggling relations between cultures of people and experience improved relations, we forget the way it was,” Braxton said. “Race relations and civil rights have come a long way, but we always need to seek improvement.

“Civil rights enhances everyone’s lives. King was aware of his situation and took the risk; he did it anyway. His choices and sacrifice made this important.”

Goals of the Men’s Club are to inject positive thoughts and programs into the community, Braxton said. He recalled that former mayor Raye Turner considered this a city event.

“We must continue to view this as a community event, and we must continue to view each other as brothers and sisters,” Braxton said.

Braxton told The Courier he believes King would say, “We have come a long way and have made great strides. We are almost to the top of the Mountain, but there is work to be done still.”

King would say that we need to emphasize education and stop the epidemic cycle of ignorance spreading in urban youth. Braxton said, youth who are “uneducated, in gangs, on drugs are issues King would want to fix.”

Braxton added, “It’s the character in your heart,” that leads to improving race relations and that we “still have work to do.”